Waiting for Valentine
by magenta blues
Summary: mitsui and ayako. a look into the unlikely pair.
1. Chapter 1

All that waiting for

Steam rising in the air, feet gently padding the toweled ground, she draped her robe around herself and proceeded to dry her hair whilst making her way to the master bedroom. Outside the night was alive with the usual traffic hum and the streaks of yellow that headlights made on the gray hard granite ground. Inside, 14 floors above the busy sidewalks and streets, the room was a contrasting calm, with only the strains of Miss Ella and Mr Louie contributing to a lovely melodic background.

She sank into the sheets on the bed, a contented sigh escaping from her lips. Most women would have been upset at the prospect of a lonely Valentine's evening, even more so devastated if they had a lover who was absent from the evening for the sole reason that their work could not, would not free them for even one very special night.

But.

She was not most women. She loved her solitude and more importantly she was secure in the fact that somewhere out there, her man was thinking of her even if he wasn't physically present. Besides, she rather that it was his passion that kept him away and not another femme fatale.

It also helped that they had been through this a couple of times. They had wrestled with the issue of their opposing and drastically different career choices. He, a high school basketball coach, her, a rising junior executive in the fastest growing banking institution. She used to gripe over the fact that he absolutely abhorred her mandatory cocktail parties and they literally brawled over his thoughtless comment that 'all people who attended cocktail parties were pretentious phonies' as that careless remark naturally included her as 'one of those people'. At the same time, she had to learn to understand that his kids, his players were important to him. Though she was foremost in his life, his passion sometimes meant late night phone calls from high school punks that would cause him to scramble out of their apartment in the wee hours of the morning to counsel some kid… …leaving her of course with a cold empty bed.

Obviously, it wasn't easy.

But she loved him. And though he didn't say it very often, in fact, would probably choke on his words if he attempted to articulate it, she got the sense that he felt the same way too.

So she would wait and read, and content herself with the quiet solitary hours, knowing somewhere on this Valentine's Day evening, her lover was out there, living out his passion. She would wait, with the full knowledge that they had come far enough to allow the other to live without impinging on each other's dreams, and yet still have learnt the art of mutual submission.

She smiled and laid her head down on her pillow just as the door clicked open.

He tried to open the door quietly. It had been a long day for Mitsui Hisashi and all he had craved and waited for the entire day was his lover's presence. He stared at the figure draped in white on the bed, the sheets outlining her every curve. Slowly, he made his way to the bed, and crawled under the sheets where she lay. Sliding his hand under her waist, he pulled her to him.

"Hi," she said lazily as her eyes met his.

There was no celebration, no roses, no chocolates or wine in their Valentine's Day. But as they lay in bed together, passing the night in its stillness, Mitsui felt that they were, in a funny strange way, celebrating their own special relationship.

"Hey Ayako," he replied hoarsely as he claimed her mouth.

And all that waiting for finally paid off.

Disclaimer: I do not any of the characters whatsoever, but I would still love a review!


	2. Chapter 2

He knew he was out of his depth here. Overwhelmed, cornered and surrounded by the explosion of colour, his sensitive nose was being worked overtime as the hundreds of odors and scents pervaded the entire area and relentlessly assaulted his nasal senses.

Gods why did this have to be so difficult?

C'mon Mitsui, suck it up, men of far lesser calibre have done this before and have succeeded.

Still, he knew he was out of his element here. He was like a beached whale upon shore, frantically flapping his fins futilely against the sand, moaning his whale song inwardly.

Let's face it, he, Mitsui Hisashi, sucked at choosing flowers. He had no sense of floral arrangement and couldn't tell which colours went with what.

That said, he was still in the little floral shop along 10th Avenue, grimacing and grinding his teeth against each other as he tried vainly to pick out the perfect bouquet for Ayako.

It was all his students' fault. Those nosey parkers were aghast when in their attempt to extricate details about his Valentine's Day rendezvous, they found out that he had hardly spent anytime with his girlfriend of 2 years on that special occasion. Their horror was heightened when he further revealed that no gifts or love tokens were exchanged and they refused to be consoled when he tried to explain to them the special understanding he and Ayako shared with regards to Valentine's Day.

"_But Sensei! That's just so unromantic!" Keiko, one of the players from the girls' basketball team, said petulantly and sighed. She continued to shake her in disapproval towards Mitsui throughout the rest of the basketball practice._

"_Yeah Sensei, I mean, even I know how to treat my girlfriend right on Valentine's Day!" Tasuke, ace of the guys' basketball team, chimed in. Then in a more conspiratorial tone, he whispered to Mitsui, "It also gets me in real good with her, if you know what I mean."_

_Mitsui, of course, knew what the boy had meant at that time and promptly sent him off on ten laps around the basketball court to work off any excess energy generated by raging hormones_.

And now, here he was, in a little flower shop, stupidly following his students' advice, carrying out the excruciating task of selecting a silly little gift.

He would make a mental note to have them do double of their practice drills tomorrow.

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He heard the keys jangle in the door, the lock turn, and the sound of heels clicking against the hardwood surface. He stared at the bouquet of wild flowers in his hand, the mesh of purple, orange, red set against a leafy green. He tweaked one of the stems, tried to position it in a manner that in his mind seemed more beautiful.

"Oh honey, I'm home." Ayako called out in a sing-song voice as she strolled into the living room. Her gray pinstriped skirt swished around her knees, the top two buttons of her starch white blouse had already come undone and her hair was piled messily on top of her head.

She looked perfect. Mitsui gaped at her, letting the sight of her take his breath away as it always did. Ayako's lips were poised to quirk up in her usual easy smile but then a dark look clouded over her face and her eyes narrowed.

"What is _that_?" Ayako said pointedly, and jutted her chin out towards the bouquet Mitsui held in his hand.

"Oh, uh, a gift. A belated Valentine's Day gift, a token of my love to you." Mitsui said, cringing slightly as he heard the cheesy words that rattled off his mouth. Nevertheless, he held out the bunch of wild flowers to the lady, and grinned charmingly.

Nothing could have prepared him for the reaction she had.

**WHAP! WHAP!**

"OW! What the..? Why the bloody hell are you hitting me!" Mitsui yelped as he dropped the flowers to cover his head as Ayako continued to rain blows on him with her trademark paper fan.

"Why? Why? WHAT ON EARTH DID YOU DO THIS TIME?" Ayako roared as she chased Mitsui round the room with her fan, her face an interesting shade of red whilst Mitsui's arm turned an interesting shade of blue.

"What are you talking about? I didn't do anything!" Mitsui said, whirling around on her and forcefully grabbing her right wrist, causing Ayako to drop her fan in surprise. She quickly recovered though, and fixed a deathly glare on him

"Then what are the flowers for?"

"They're a gift! G-I-F-T. Have you never heard that word before?" Mitsui said in exasperation. He continued to levy a firm grip on her right wrist, lest she had any other ideas.

"Yes, but why? What did you do? The last time I received a gift from you, it was because you got drunk, mistook my sister for me and almost manhandled her!"

"That was an honest mistake!"

"Yes, and you gave me a huge teddy bear to apologise. Now what I want to know is what did you do this time and what are those flowers for!" Ayako said, her eyes flaming. She leveled a steady gaze at Mitsui and tried to search his eyes for some answer, for some secret she could hopefully discern and decipher.

"Ayako, I swear. I didn't do anything this time. My students thought it would be nice if I bought you something and I followed their damn advice. I wish I hadn't now." Mitsui said seriously, trying to choke back his own indignation and ire. He didn't want to take it out on Ayako. He realized as she had pointedly mentioned that he did only buy gifts as compensation, he couldn't quite entirely blame her for the suspicion that he aroused then.

Still, it pissed him off that she always had such violent reactions.

"So… they really are a gift _gift_? You didn't do anything?" Ayako said slowly, understanding slowly dawning in her eyes. Mitsui nodded and resignedly explained the events that had prompted such an affair, how he had let himself be convinced by his students that a long overdue romantic gesture was in order.

"But trust me, if I had known it would lead to this," Mitsui said and held up the swollen arm that suffered the brunt of Ayako's rage. "I wouldn't have bothered."

He could see the swift change in Ayako's mood. The fire left her eyes and her features grew softer. Raising her own hand, she gently traced the bruises on Mitsui's forearm.

"Oh dear, it seems that I've made a mistake." She said softly, her eyes locking onto his, her lips quirked in a half smile. Her way of making an apology.

"No kidding," Mitsui said gruffly, but he felt her hands encircle around his neck and he let himself automatically lean into her.

"I would like to make up for it." She said, her eyes gaining a different glow. They were sly and full of mischief now. Mitsui wondered at her, this woman whose moods shifted like the wind, who had somehow ensnared him completely despite her dreaded fan.

"That would be nice." Mitsui said and led her into the bedroom.

The flowers continued to lay on the floor, untouched until Ayako came out of the room the next morning to adorn them in a nice blue vase.

A/N: hoped you liked it! Please RNR! I love to read comments.


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